Bites of Xi'an 84 西府小吃 — Restaurant in New York

My big bro and I were going back and forth on what to eat. I wanted ramen he wanted Chinese. We obviously went with Chinese because he's big bro. My time will come.

He showed me this place on his phone and it looked authentic af. I'm always down. We hoofed over from the mean streets of Alphabet City.

After trotting down the stairs into the entrance, it feels as if you have teleported into a hole in the wall restaurant in Xi'an. I have never been to Xi'an, but a man could dream can't he?

After walking in, my big bro leans to me and says "everyone in here is Chinese that's how you know it's going to be good." Big bro said that not me.

After we walk up to the counter to order, he starts speaking Mandarin to the upbeat employee taking our order. I had no idea he spoke the language and was so caught off guard. I quickly composed myself, think Chris Rock post slap, but realized I need to start asking more thought provoking questions to people. How did I not know he was fluent in Mandarin? That's on me honestly.

For food, we got a small feast. We ordered pork dumplings, Crispy Pork Burger, Meat Sauce Dry Noodle, Chicken in Spicy Sauce (2), and Rice topped with braised pork belly.

The highlights for me were the Dry Noodle and Crispy Pork Burger, but I need to give special love to the Burger.

For $4.95, it is a CLASSIC inflation buster as it is a good size with a large portion of meat, and a BLAST of flavor that EXPLODES into your mouth like that SpaceX rocket that blew up yesterday. Pause somewhere in there. It was not a traditional "burger", but I'd argue that everyone needs to try it.

Big Bro texted me saying 4.5 stars in total so I'm giving...

Okay Xian food. Not as good as Xi'ans Famous. But totally okay as a substitute. The recipe is different of course so flavor is different. The portions are tad smaller than Xi'ans Famous.

Got the lamb cumin hand ripped noodle and was good enough. Not great but all the flavors are there. Small bits of lamb with mostly sprouts. Could have used more cilantro. Smaller portion of noodles and less meat compared to Xi'ans Famous.

The Diao Diao noodles were okay with shredded pork belly, bean sauce, scrambled eggs and tomatoes. Protion is a tad small with the hand ripped noodles. Good noodles with good savory flavor.

The pork and chives dumplings were below average. They were small. I would just skip the dumplings all together.

The lamb burger was alright with the flakey bun. This is better Xi'ans. With a nice portion of lamb.

The water basin mutton was okay as well. Sliced mutton with tofu and vermicelli. Soup was on the simple and clear side not heavy on flavor and it came with a flakey bun.

Overall this was an okay meal. Not really comparable to Xi'ans Famous. But as a quick...

I was super hungry when I got there...everything looked good on the menu. I don't know anything about Xi'an Chinese food. I got the Beef Noodle soup, the noodles were delicious. Broth was salty, not too spicy, pretty good. I could deal with that. BUT, the beef was absolutely the worst beef I have ever gotten in NYC. No, in any restaurant in my entire life. It looked like beef jerky, super tough and gamey, with crunchy strands of fat in it. Not soft fat, tough and crunchy fat. But I tried to eat it, but ended up removing every piece from my mouth with a napkin. The person with me tried it and laughed because it was inedible. I finished the noodles because I was starving, but I won't be going back. Oh, and they won't give you a cup of water with your food, they only have single serve plastic bottles for purchase. Maybe I need to know more about this style of food, but in terms of just tasting good, I didn't think...